


The Grand Old Lie

by smizily



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3684879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smizily/pseuds/smizily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after the war, Johanna won't smile for the camera.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grand Old Lie

                Once every couple of months, a man or woman with a geometric charcoal suit and a politically correct haircut raps politely on Johanna’s front door. These people arm themselves with a stern expression, a microphone, and a camera.

 

                In the beginning, she sent them away. She never was able to summon the patience to deal with journalists, and there was absolutely nothing she wanted more than to live out the rest of her life away from the paranoid eye of the new Capitol. However, despite the slamming doors and generous servings of profanity, they always came back.  Little surprise there; victors who weren’t dead, traitors, or married to traitors were in short supply. 

 

                Johanna had learned to slip out the back door and walk along the beach until she reached the dock where the younger children played while the fisherfolk were out. Eventually, they found her there too.  It was there, boning knife in hand, that she threatened to castrate the first reporter who expressed interest in interviewing Annie. Tragic figures were very popular, he explained, but he had no better idea of how to deal with the trembling woman than the old media had. After that, Johanna agreed to small interviews, though not with anything resembling friendliness.

 

                It is always some kind of special occasion, perhaps 80 years since the first Hunger Games, or six years since the liberation of some district or another. Today is the fifth anniversary of Alma Coin, bless her, leaving both the earthly plane and the revolution in the care of more moderate leadership.

 

                The staff members of the state-sponsored media are straight-laced with no superfluous frills, but they wouldn't be able to scrub the look of wealth off them if they tried. Looking at them, Johanna finds herself wondering if their parents have hidden shoe-boxes full of bright lipsticks, iridescent shawls, and gold pocket watches that they take sneak peeks at when their house-mates aren’t looking. Did they denounce their friends through gritted teeth, or did they jump at the opportunity? In very little time at all, she finds herself too tired to care. “I suppose you’ll be wanting a quote.”

 

                For a moment, it’s like she’s on a District 13 broadcast again, the ghost of old rage twists cold in her belly. She doesn’t need to recant the injustices of the old Panem; those callouses on her soul her all too well known. She says them anyway, because that is what they want, a reminder of why they’re here. What she doesn’t say is that she is no longer disappointed that Katniss never kept the promise she made in the hospital all that time ago. She doesn’t spit that it’s no easier to find razor blades, or soap, or bread in the new Panem than the old. Nor does she mention that she can’t watch Annie’s copper-haired little one without _knowing knowing knowing_ and wondering what if this is really their prize.

 

                Instead she mutters a few well-worn phrases about justice, equality, and the power of the people. They never ask _which_ people exactly.

 

                She does keep one promise to herself and never smiles as the camera flashes. If this bothers anyone at the Capitol, they never say so. Heroes of the people are allowed to be serious.


End file.
